a bear

The only example I can think of for #1 is the Hockey Players spirit, wherein DK is the beloved Fat Guy. Side note: even ignoring that using an actual gorilla to represent a character based off of several real-life black boxing legends is extremely racist, DK as Mr. Sandman is still a really weak reference. They have no moves in common and the closest thing DK has to Sandman is his bonus boss appearance in the Wii game. Haven't played Street Fighter since the 90's but I'm sure Captain Falcon or Bayonetta would've fit Dee Jay way better as well.

Ah, sounds like what my wife did. She’s got two Eirs teamed up with three of Laegjarn (also running TA+Axebreaker and no blessing), Nowi, Aversa, or Pennsylvania Azura. I myself don’t use armors much besides Zelgius but man oh man is having Bold Fighter so handy. Maybe March will add a GHB Murdock with Bold Fighter if you’re too reluctant to give up a Hardin or whoever.

Did you use your 3rd blessing on someone else already? Regardless, at 140 per run you’ve got room for 680 points to lose when starting at T19.

Gonna be nice if weekly blessing prizes are always a thing. I keep forgetting bonus units exist, so running a 160 team means a regular supply of em. Shame we can’t bless legendaries though since Ephraim is my only bonus unit this week. As much as I’ll enjoy not having to give a shit about this mode during off-seasons and the eventual T21, I’m still more excited for that “nullify -sweep skills” skill to come out. Not that I can’t deal with Veronica or anything right now but boy am I sick of having to tip-toe around her.

Remember that at +0 merges, 2:3 Eirs to others is score-equivalent to a 3:2 team (+60). I’m not sure how much +5 HP/Res means to those two units, but I’d hate to bringing in a third copy of any unit that wasn’t a dancer or otherwise extremely flexible/powerful. Might as well merge or feed at that point. Also note that at 160 lift per battle (pull a second Eir and play AR five times this week), you have a huge lift safety net in terms of fuck ups and defense losses up until trying for T21. You could lose 560 from 7 failed defenses, take 24 deaths and miss about 6 pots (outside the first Monday fight) in about 14 fights... and you’d still go from T19 to T20.

In terms of numbers: 152 people started in T19 this week. Not sure about T18 but I’m estimating around 3000ish based on my Sunday rank. My wife and I actually did better in total scoring compared to the prior week despite ample fuck-ups, zero defense kills (let alone wins), and not using Eir. Remember also that you don’t need to merge mythics to get the most out of them. T21 for example is actually super easy to reach if you can manage to pull two extra Eirs and two defense mythics of whatever season.

Defensive blessings are 1 point per mythic merge (max 20) + 4 points per blessed hero per mythic hero (max 2 mythic heroes). Should cap out at 52 lift loss reduced, which is a 65% reduction from the typical 80.

I’m mostly excited to pull for Owain and Ophelia at buffed rates

Nah mine is Julia, Chrom, Micaiah, and Takumi without weapons, and the buildings spell out “hi” but I’m not sure people notice that.

This is basically why I made my defense team a free win, I don’t feel like ruining someone’s day for maybe two grails a week. That plus the fact that only 6 or 7 of those 20 or so fights actually affect me anyway.

A few days ago I moved my aether pots to the front row. Today I took off everyone’s weapons and left them in the open. Defense losses seem largely inevitable as it stands right now, and even then, fuck it. Seeing other people lose units or miss pots is bothering me way too much knowing how strict this mode is.

I like it. Few thoughts: — Setting 5 diverse teams instead of just one and done like in Arena and GC makes it way easier to anticipate wacky teams. Most of the teams I ran into were armored or dragons though, and it’s easy to stop those with Chrom, Micaiah, and Cherche. — Wish Aether wasn’t so strictly limited. Same issue with GC more or less; finite access to the most enjoyable modes in the game. It’s a better stamina method since it’s daily instead of continuous, but still inconvenient (locked myself out of a 9th battle by accidentally killing the other team too quickly in two of my fights and missing pots, and now I hate pots). — Set up my defense team for dodging Aversa, but my only defense battle was against someone with no merges losing against some random team I listed with no obstacles included. Seems like the best way to get fights is to set up defense early and put off fights for later. — REALLY hope they let us play against whoever for no cost, even if there’s no real reward. Or give rewards anyway, it’s not like everything has to be gated by opportunity.

If we’re focusing on their clothing specifically, then yeah Rex is more unique. Super gaudy, but unique. For every other aspect of their designs, Rex hits all the most common design tropes and Elma avoids them. It’s kinda funny to me that we actually have more characters based on teamwork in Smash than we have characters with dual swords, dual guns, dark skin, white hair, giant vehicles, etc. Even Elma’s generic iron blades are less similar to other Smash swords than the Aegis.

It’s more the case that dissent can actually be heard now. Getting upset over “SJW culture” is basically like getting upset over hearing that everyone thinks you give shitty Christmas presents. These aren’t new issues, even if they’re new to you or I.

I forgot this was tonight, started doing that thing where you’re reading predictions and think people already saw it and you’re super late to the party and oops.

Hard to say when Nintendo — not even anyone specifically, just “Nintendo” — is calling the shots. Hoping for Elma, Dixie, and Monster Hunter; expecting advertisements and Metal Mario.

Good feels good. Also objectively speaking: helping others makes people more willing and/or able to help you at some point. Getting an entire community to share this mindset is key to making the strongest, happiest, and most efficient community possible.

*knocks on wood*

Technically it’s wrong because Kirby, but eh. A lot of people liked to suggest so-and-so as a stance character, usually involving multiple movesets. Coincidentally, Elma and Rex regularly come up since that’d fit their games’ mechanics more than Shulk’s. Most of our newcomers are pretty straightforward compared to Smash 4 however (with exception to Inkling’s ink), and it’s really unlikely that Sakurai would invest so much time on one character unless they transformed into multiple. And by transforming, I mean drastically changing who you play as rather than swapping weapons (or support characters in Rex’s case). Not that that suggests we aren’t getting Elma or Rex or whoever, but that they’d have a more traditional moveset.

Any of them, all of them. I’d take Makalov at this point. If I could only have one beorc and laguz each, Boyd and Reyson. When was the last Tellius banner again? RD in January?

Can’t say I have any real interest in any other SE characters being in Smash, even though I like a lot of them including Geno. Maybe because my expectations for any particular SNES/PS1-era classic or extra Final Fantasy character to get lovin’ are nonexistent. Also I really need to find a copy of Xenogears.

Only thing that caught my eye was Stillness, which I’ve always wanted to see and figured would just make a unit untargettable on enemy phase when at least one other non-user ally can be targetted (rather than invulnerability). That sort of setup would work with Provoke as well, where enemies can only target any users in range. As far as balance goes, it’d absolutely need to come with all sorts of restrictions. HP over X%, weapon and/or movement type restrictions, Volke only, disables support commands on unit when active, whatever. B slot is a good start since it rules out Desperation and -sweeps.

is it too late to play Voting Gauntlet think I ended up using like 1600 total flags across the entire thing

Imagine limiting a new class units by color in order to honor a long-dead second weapon triangle. Nevermind that FEH already (mostly) ditched wind magic effectiveness against fliers. Also Naesala has wind powers, but fuck it, make him blue because.

Endings make me sad. Games that don’t end make it easier for me to call the experience my own. They become more about the events I happen upon (like shiny Geodudes) rather than the scripts I follow. They’re usually easier to share with other people too, and that means more to me than anything.